The celebrated cartoonist, convicted of “supporting terrorism”, recognised for his bravery by CRNI and Cartooning For Peace and currently the subject of an exhibit at the Maison de Dessin du Presse, Morges, has surrendered to authorities at Kandıra Prison.

CRNI is saddened to report that our cherished friend and colleague, past winner of our Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award Musa Kart is once again a prisoner in Turkey this evening.

As recently as the beginning of this week Musa and his colleagues were hopeful that the Turkish police and prosecution service could be convinced to wait until the appeals on behalf of all the various co-accused staff from Cumhuriyet newspaper were heard (see their press conference below).

However, the appeals process for all those with shorter sentences failed in February of this year. Since then Musa’s imprisonment has been an impending possibility. We and many other cartoonists’ organisations have sent the intervening time asking for clemency via diplomatic channels, to no avail. Word came though of an imminent order for arrest and so Musa and his colleagues have elected to surrender at a time and place of their own choosing, a typically dignified gesture. Before entering Kandıra he said:

“I believe people will see the injustice that is being done here. Several brave reporters have recently summarised what’s happening in Turkey: people who punch the leader of a major political party are permitted to go free while those who draw cartoons or report the news are put in prison. We look forward to the day when journalists need not make proclamations such as these in front of prison gates.”

Musa Kart, 04/25/19

As readers of our site will recall Musa previously spent nine months in illegal pre-trial detention on charges pertaining to the support of terrorism in 2016/17. He will now go back behind bars for another year and sixteen days, having been found guilty of one of the charges levelled against him in 2018. He has since retired from cartooning , preferring to spend time with family.

We categorically condemn the unjust criminal prosecution of Musa Kart. This is the climax of a fifteen year campaign of intimidation and persecution on the part of President Recep Erdoğan who has long harboured enmity toward Musa and indeed all critical voices in the Turkish press and media. Reporter Sans Frontières’ latest index places Turkey 157th out of 180 nations and says it remains the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.

We urge all concerned with press and media freedom to join in demands for the immediate release and total exoneration of Musa Kart and all his colleagues.

A joint effort of HumanRights360 and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – Greece, the X Them Out, A Black Map of Athens website intends to record the racially-motivated crimes of the Golden Dawn party and its supporters. Cartoons by a wide variety of contributors create a sombre, emotive record of each incident reported.

Tasos Anastasiou cartoon for X Them Out – Black Map of Athens

“The Golden Dawn trial has brought to light dozens of racist crimes, mostly against migrants and refugees. However the full extent of its criminal, racist activity is not adequately known. With this campaign we attempt to establish a topography of racist violence. We seek to make its dark dimensions and its deadly nature more familiar to the general public. To this end we want to create, with the valuable support of 25 visual artists, an antiracist map of our city.

“Racist violence is invisible only when we do not wish to see it, when we avoid confronting it. This year, 2019, is the crucial, final year of the most important and biggest trial of our time. We have tried to visualise just a small part of this topography of violence that has its origins in Golden Dawn and fascism, in order to contribute to acquainting the general public with their crimes and in punishing their murderous activity.”

X Them Out, A Black Map of Athens

Tasos Anastasiou cartoon for X Them Out – Black Map of Athens

As the criminal trial of Golden Dawn’s leadership – precipitated by the murder of rapper Pavlos Fydssas – enters its finals stages the organisers of X Them Out are seeking additional assistance from cartoonists who may be able to create a record of the process. Audio visual recordings of the court proceedings are forbidden, so cartoonists are invited to attend in the public gallery and create work thereafter, similar to the effort in Turkey during the Cumhuriyet trial of 2017. Financial assistance is available to cover travel expenses.

UPDATE! The award offers two prizes: a €3,000 Grand Prix and another of €1,500 for cartoonists under 26 years of age.

While we normally don’t promote every cartooning contest that comes to our inbox, Deputy Exec. Director Terry Anderson and I concur that this is something singularly important. Women cartoonists, who normally occupy less than 5% of the political cartooning community in recent years have nonetheless emerged as some of the most powerful and effective image-makers in the world. They have carved out a new space for their voices with sharp elbows and sharper pens, especially during and after the Arab Spring movement as well as in Southern Asia.

It is completely appropriate that women have their own exhibitions, their own contests and their own award ceremonies. This competition brings their work not only to the attention of the world but to the attention of the greater cartooning community – especially editors and publishers who are left the poorer if they don’t make space for a diverse range of creative perspectives.

We endorse the competition and invite other cartooning organizations to join with us in celebrating this new effort in recognition of the importance of the satirical voice of 50% of the population. Not simply because they are women, but because they are superb communicators.

If anyone would like to send funds to help in establishing this competition please donate directly to United Sketches or send it to us (the Donate button can be found to the right) earmarked for Women’s Cartoonists International Award. We will make sure your pledge goes straight to the organizers without any administrative costs taken out.

Zunar, winner of our Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award in 2011, is thriving after a long period of adversity as perhaps the biggest year in his career unfolds.

Zunar speaks at Muzium Negeri Pulau Pinang 05/05/19

A little less than two year ago, Zunar found it impossible to mount public events in his home country of Malaysia and in particular the city of Penang. Exhibitions would either be cancelled outright due to threats or would be interrupted by vandals, invariable leading to yet another incident of arrest or criminal charges for the cartoonist rather than the pro-government goons making his life a misery.

Now a major career retrospective – Art of Freedom – is set to open to the public later this month at the Muzium Negeri Pulau Pinang, the state museum in Penang. Such a thing would have been impossible under the previous regime. The videos below show the scale and beautiful presentation of the exhibit. The launch event last weekend was attended by the leader of the parliamentary opposition in Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim.

“I am nearly choking as I say this because I feel sentimental whenever I see Zunar’s artworks. It reminds me of the suffering we both went through together. And these artworks show the tangible suffering Zunar underwent. His works show how important cartoonists are to the country’s development”

The exhibition comes at the same time as Zunar’s memoir, Fight Through Cartoons, which will be available from Saturday. The book covers all the sorry details of the former prime minister Najib Razak and his government’s persecution of the cartoonist, up to an including multiple charges of sedition over Tweets about the afore-mentioned Ibrahim. CRNI’s Executive Director is quoted on the cover blurb:

“Zunar has given us something that is quite rare in the world of human rights and political cartooning. He opens the door into the anatomy of how a tyrant and demagogue uses the tools and institutions of state power to stop the critics that would point the world’s attention to their lawlessness…”

Dr. Robert Russell, Exec. Director, CRNI

Zunar laboured under a travel ban for a substantial period and has been making up for it since his change in fortune following the election of May last year. Most recently he was with Cartooning For Peace’s delegation to the African Union, Addis Ababa for the week of events preceding World Press Freedom Day.

Following cartoonist Musa Kart’s imprisonment last week, a host of international freedom of expression organizations have endorsed CRNI’s call upon the authorities in Turkey to release him.

Our statement reads:

CRNI is greatly saddened to report that the internationally acclaimed cartoonist Musa Kart is again a prisoner this World Press Freedom Day.

In November 2016 Musa Kart was one of a number of staff from the Cumhuriyet newspaper arrested without charge. He and his colleagues’ subsequent months in Silivri prison would be described as unlawful by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, “being in contravention of articles 10, 11 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of articles 14, 15 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.

In April 2017 he was formally indicted with “helping an armed terrorist organization while not being a member” and “abusing trust”, prosecutors stipulating a maximum sentence of twenty-nine years. His trial began in July 2017. His funny, excoriating opening statement is worth reading in full.

After twelve months of court proceedings (arduous litigation being a well-worn censorious tactic) Kart was eventually found guilty and sentenced to three years and nine months. The appeals lodged on behalf of all those who received shorter sentences during the Cumhuriyet trials failed in February this year. Kart was informed he would be required to go to prison for one year and sixteen days.

On April 25th he and five colleagues – board members Önder Çelik and M.Kemal Güngör, news director Hakan Kara, columnist Güray Öz and financial officer Emre İper – decided to hand themselves in at Kandıra prison, a typically dignified and brave gesture.

Musa’s ultimate incarceration represents the culmination of fifteen years of persecution by then prime minister, now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who twice tried and twice failed to use court action to silence the cartoonist in 2005 and 2014. As those who have followed recent history in Turkey will be aware, the attempted coup of July 2016 and the subsequent state of emergency provided Erdoğan the pretext required to round up many of his perceived enemies in academia, local government, the military and press & media. His victory in the April 2017 referendum, granting the president greater powers, and subsequent re-election in 2018 have only entrenched his position. In survey after survey Turkey remains the world’s number one jailer of journalists.

Kart is a past winner of CRNI’s Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award, was given the Cartooning For Peace Swiss Foundation’s Prix International du Dessin de Presse last year and is currently the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Maison du Dessin de Presse, Morges. He formally retired from cartooning in December 2017.

The undersigned organizations join CRNI in calling for the immediate release of Musa Kart and his five courageous colleagues and the dismissal of all charges against the criminalised former staff of Cumhuriyet. This World Press Freedom Day we express our solidarity with all those suffering in the protracted and unprecedented crackdown on freedom of expression in Turkey, and call for its end.

Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech

Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC)

ARTICLE 19

Association of European Journalists

Articolo 21

Bytes for All (B4A)

Center for Media Studies & Peace Building (CEMESP)

Child Rights International Network (CRIN)

Civic Spaces Studies Association – Turkey

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

European Centre for Press and Media Freedom

European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)

Free Media Movement

Global Editors Network (GEN)

Independent Journalism Center (IJC)

Index on Censorship

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)

International Press Institute (IPI)

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

Media Watch

PEN International

PEN America

PEN Canada

Danish PEN

German PEN

Norwegian PEN

Swedish PEN

Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)

South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM)

South East Europe Media Organisation

Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

#FreeMusaKart • #FreeTurkeyMedia • #WPFD2019

We are particularly grateful to IFEX and its members for support in this effort. Please take a look at everything they are doing to draw attention to the threats facing media workers of every kind on #WPFD2019

Last year CRNI had a seat on the planning committee for the inaugural Cartooning Global Forum (États Généraux du Dessin de Presse) held at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris, France. The recommendations from this event are released today to help mark #WPFD2019

On World Press Freedom Day we are pleased to endorse the recommendations from the first Cartooning Global Forum, offering guidelines on how the contribution of cartoonists worldwide might best be used to achieve the UN Members States’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Quality Education, Gender Equality, Reduced Inequalities and Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions.

Representatives from thirty-three international NGOs and cartoonists’ associations, eight universities, museums and archival institutions, ten publishers and media companies and, overall, thirty different nations contributed to the discussion from which these recommendations emerged.

CRNI will continue to assist in the planning and facilitation of the next forum, set to take place at Paris City Hall on October 2nd, 2019. There are a number of ancillary events taking place in the same week elsewhere in the city, as well as meetings before and after as part of the Salon International de la Caricature, du Dessin de Presse et d’Humour, Saint-Just-le-Martel.

Registration for accreditation at the 2019 forum is now open. Cartoonists are encouraged to participate as well as other stakeholders, especially academics, archivists, legal experts and organizations concerned with freedom of expression and protection of creative rights.

CRNI’s current Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award laureate Pedro X Molina has paid tribute to past winner Musa Kart, currently a prisoner in Turkey. Together with our friends at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fundwe present this new comic strip in English and Spanish ahead of World Press Freedom Day.

The history of Musa Kart by PX Molina.La historia de Musa Kart por PX Molina.

Since the news broke a week ago cartoonists everywhere have begun posting their own tributes, expressions of solidarity and outrage using the hashtag #FreeMusaKart

CRNI is an anti-censorship organization and endorses the freedom of expression of cartoonists everywhere. It is heartening to see efforts made to keep Musa’s story at the forefront of the news agenda and cartoons will certainly help; they will go even further if they can be used by campaigners in Turkey, as in the past.

We’ll have more to say about Musa, alongside many other freedom of expression NGOs, later on #WPFD2019